A&E's "Wedding Wars" Shamelessly Plugs Gay "Marriage"

If there was any doubt that Hollywood has an agenda when it comes to gay “marriage,” A&E put it to rest when it premiered Wedding Wars on Dec. 11th. From the first lines of dialogue to the rainbow-colored A&E logo at the end, movie viewers were treated to a relentless barrage of propaganda.

The plot centers around the question, “What would happen if all the gay people in America and all those who supported gay marriage went on strike?”

The film is told from the perspective of Shel, a homosexual wedding planner played by John Stamos. He is hired to plan his brother Ben's (Eric Dane) wedding. Ben is a speech writer for the Democratic governor of Maine (James Brolin) who is running for re-election, and Ben is marrying the governor's daughter (Bonnie Somerville). When Shel finds out that his brother wrote a speech for the governor advocating a ban on gay “marriage,” he goes on strike. As the press gets wind of the story, the strike grows – of course – to national proportions. The wedding is in jeopardy and the bad guys are – naturally – the ones who stand for traditional family values.

Caricatures abound. Every single person against gay “marriage” is male, and all but one is white. The Republican gubernatorial challenger is an uptight guy shown only via TV ads spouting such lines as: “What's next, polygamy, incest or marrying your dog?” Every single homosexual character is sympathetic. All of the women are sympathetic to the gay cause. Shel's action is compared to Rosa Parks' historic protest. And when all the homosexual people go out on strike, we learn how many people really ARE supposed to be gay: the TV weatherman and teleprompter operator, the stereotypical florists and hairdressers, limo drivers, restaurant and shop owners—everyone, everywhere it seems is either gay or supports gay “marriage.”

Cute shots of protest signs blanket a map of the United States, telling us the strike affects everyone in the country. Montages of pro-gay scenes are underscored with light-hearted music—almost like you'd expect to hear on Little House on the Prairie. The gay protest scenes feature such dialogue as, “Support my constitutional right to marry.” Placards closest to the camera during the protest scenes proclaim, “Gay is OK” and “Love Not Hate.”

At no point in the two-hour film do producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, writer Stephen Mazur, or director Jim Fall allow a reasoned, factual argument to be made for traditional marriage, not even one decent sound bite. By film's end, everyone who had taken a stand for traditional marriage has been convinced of the error of his ways. The story does use the plot twist that the gay strike boosts the narrow-minded governor's poll numbers, but the writers use that as a hook to send the “battle is lost, but the war will be won” message. And that message is delivered by none other than Shel's homophobic father, who tells him that as a union worker he went out on strike once and the union lost the fight. But, he reassures his son, “a couple of years later, we won.”

The movie ends with the gay strikers rallying to Shel's side to save his brother Ben's wedding by dismantling all the tacky stuff the substitute wedding planner had put together and in record time, of course, coming up with a beautiful, tasteful, wonderful, magical – perfect – wedding for Ben and his bride. At the end of the reception Shel asks the governor to change his mind about his stance against gay “marriage.” The governor tells Shel he doesn't want to. “Why not?” asks Shel.

“Because I want to get re-elected,” says the governor. Of course. Taking a stand against gay “marriage” is just a self-serving political ploy. No one could ever really believe that gay “marriage” is wrong. At least not in A&E's world.

A&E has dedicated a Web page to gay “marriage,” with colorful maps designed to show how many places around the world (actually, there are very few) support such unions while the United States does not. Message boards are filled with more factless propaganda for gay “marriage.” In typical fashion the brave souls who post in support of traditional marriage are ridiculed and called bigots.

Will and Grace and Ellen broke down the barriers for Hollywood to start advancing the ball up the field to score touchdowns for homosexuality. Wedding Wars is the two-point conversion.

The bad news is that every subscriber whose cable system carries A&E has helped subsidize this kind of propaganda. The good news is that cable “events” like Wedding Wars are fueling the drive for consumer-friendly cable choice.

Kristen L. Fyfe is senior writer at the Culture and Media Institute, a division of the MediaResearchCenter.

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